The Metamorphosis

This was another book of Franz Kafka I read recently. Again a terrific read. I simply enjoy such philosophical works. This again is a short story which can have different interpretations by readers.

In this story, Gregor Samsa, one fine day wakes up & realizes he has been converted to a vermin & now is incapable of leading a normal life or even communicating with anybody. & then story goes on to describe how he loses his job and how his family tries to cope up with this. His feelings during all this & then his end.

In the beginning I couldn't really comprehend as to what does the author imply by saying that Gregor has been transformed to a vermin. Then I interpreted it this way that Gregor who was terribly loaded with work & responsibility one fine day realizes that its the breaking point & he cant take it any more, even if he wants to cuz his body has given away. [ May be he got hit by some terrible fatal, maybe even contagious, disease due to all the exhaustion & mental strain ]. So even if he wants to he is incapable of working or moving around or even speaking to his family members. As he was so much loaded with work [from his office], with expectations & responsibilities [from his family members], he hardly could take care of himself leading to his break point. It just shows that how in this world one gets so engrossed in making ends meet & fulfilling ones responsibilities. The difficulty Gregor was facing in getting up in the morning, just reminded me, how difficult it gets at times for Me to get up on mornings following an exhaustive day.

To this his family slowly copes up. Up till this point they considered themselves incapable of working but each one of them was able to manage to work for a livelihood. So just shows this facet of human nature, where one gets so dependent [like a parasite] on others that they don't even attempt to make use of their own capabilities.

Lastly when Gregor dies, the family is kind of relieved. One reason could be that they are relieved that his sufferings are over. But in the story, it seemed that they are relieved cuz now they don't have to take care of Gregor, who by now had become a parasite instead, because caring for him had become quite troublesome for them. Also now they can again look into other aspects of life & enjoy their existence. It just in a way shows that once one person is gone, it doesn't take much time for others to get used to that fact. Even though it is painful initially.